Stunning Cave Photography Illuminates an Unseen World

The first time National Geographic photographer Robbie Shone stepped foot in a cave, he was hooked. Captivated by the thrill of exploration and the stunning vistas, Shone began bringing a camera into the caves. Shone takes the stage to share his stunning cave photos and the stories of how he got them.

The National Geographic Live series brings thought-provoking presentations by today’s leading explorers, scientists, photographers, and performing artists right to you. Each presentation is filmed in front of a live audience at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Thank you all for coming this evening. So, I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about photographing darkness. When I originally got into cave and caving, and then a couple of projects, and then finally my most recent assignment earlier on this year. So caves. Caves were our first homes. They offered us a canvas to create our first artwork about 40,000 years ago. And they also offered us a safe place during the last ice age. Scientists believe that if there is life on Mars, it's probably underground, sheltering away from the harsh atmosphere outside. In essence, caves, we basically evolved from caves. But I feel like we've lost that connection and I wanted to bring that back. And that's why I use social media to do this, it's a great tool to bring this back. Now whenever I speak to a non-caver about caves, the reaction is always the same. "Oh, I couldn't do that I'm claustrophobic, "and I get, you know, in lifts, "and I don't like tight spaces. "Is it not muddy, dirty, dark? "Are there any monsters down there?" Does this look small? Can you see the four people in the picture? Does this look dark? Or dirty? Okay, there are some monsters but they're not that dangerous. And they're only small. You got a crab, spider, silkworm, blind fish. But they can be fascinating too because they've evolved to live in total darkness where there's no light. It's not always plain sailing, it can be tight. And it can also be dirty as well. These guys are digging out rocks and boulders that are blocking a passage and they're trying to find somewhere new where nobody's been before. It can also be dangerous. You imagine being in this cave passage where the water suddenly rises and you're gonna be trapped. But it can also be spectacular. Can you see the two people here? That person there in the distance is about 300 foot from the ceiling and 300 foot above the floor.

Now in my work as a photographer, I'm trying to break down the borders between reality and perception, what is real. And I mean real exploration where no human being has ever gone before. Conservation and wildlife photographer Brian Skerry once told me that 95% of the world's oceans are unexplored. That is a staggering statistic. But I can't stand here and tell you how many caves are unexplored because we haven't found them yet. We have to actually go there and see them for real to know that they exist. You can't see them from satellites in space. And it's bringing images like this back to the surface and sharing them with thousands and thousands of people on social media like Instagram, that's what drives me. However, caves don't always look like this, I have to be honest. It's only for a split second when you set off the flashes and the lights that you see them like this. Most of the time, caves look like this. And it was seeing this space underground in a cave in England about 16 years ago that got me hooked. I was absolutely drawn to the environment where there's no light, it's an alien world. And I was fascinated with this space and I, I wanted to take pictures in the caves basically.

This was my first cave photograph that I took 16 years ago when I was studying fine art at university in Sheffield. And at the time I wanted to combine my love of caves and caving with my passion for art. So that's when I started teaching myself cave photography. I would practice in a local cave called Titan. Using these film cameras that I borrowed from university. I wouldn't tell them where I was taking them because I don't think they'd let me take them if they knew where they were going. And then at weekends I got involved in a digging project. So we decided to sink a mine shaft from the surface through solid rock and then a tunnel all the way to Titan. And we would drill big holes with a compressed air drill like this one here and then blow up the limestone with explosives. And then all the rocks and rubble we had to cart along the tunnel on this railway that we installed and then winch it to the surface. It took four years to complete this project. Sinking the shaft from the surface, making the connection through to Titan. Now at the time, like I said, I was using the film cameras, so I would draw pictures of how I imagined the photograph to look like. You can see the picture on the right, it's a bit more technical, it's got the angles of the lenses that I was using and the F stops and the guide numbers, or the lights we were using, the distances to the walls. How reflective the surface of the walls were. Trying to build up the photograph in my mind. You can see here on the left a sketch. This is in Titan, on a ledge halfway up. I wanted to make a picture looking up to the ceiling. So I drew the sketch and then we went into the cave and tried to make the photograph real. Try and get something similar. Now due to the size and shape of Titan, it's very vertical in nature, it's about 450 feet tall, it's the largest natural shaft in the UK. And I thought the most impressive picture was from the very top looking straight down the void, all the way down to the bottom. So we had to climb up into the roof with all my camera gear and somehow anchor my tripod to the wall with the camera fixed solid looking straight down. And you can see here I had to climb up there using ropes, sitting on a seat that I'd made. I had a walkie-talkie radio, so I could communicate with all the people below me who had flashguns. And at the time I was still using the film cameras.

Now although the pictures were fairly impressive, they were never exactly what I dreamed about. So, I was being hassled and persuaded by my colleagues to get a digital camera. So I eventually, after several attempts, I succumbed and bought my first digital camera which was a Canon EOS 20D. And of course, with the luxury of being able to see the photograph on the back of the camera. We were able to get that photograph that I dreamed about. And you can see the rope going all the way down to the caver in the bottom there. And there's still a big void below that, maybe 200 foot below that black hole. And at the top of the picture you can see the breakthrough window where our surface shaft and tunnel which we'd driven through limestone popped down. Now unbeknown to me, at the time this was my first attempt at documenting a story. And although these photographs are like 10, maybe 12 years old now, it's great with social media and Instagram. By sort of reinventing them almost, you're bringing them back to life. It's not like they're lost in an archive. And, for instance, I was also invited to take the photographs for a book, a French cave called the Gouffre Berger. Now at the time when Mount Everest was being conquered in 1953, within the same week, a team of French cavers were exploring the then deepest cave in the world, called the Gouffre Berger, all within about a week of each other. The cave's about 3,500 foot deep. Here's a picture of our team. And you can see how much lighting equipment and camera equipment we had to take underground for a four day camp.

Now leaving the surface behind and going on into a cave for many days is a very strange feeling. Knowing that you're gonna spend all that time away from the sun, it's a little bit depressing, I must admit. But our journey through the cave was really cool. We went past this first section where there's a wooden platform, which the French pioneers used to haul and lower equipment. And it was fascinating to see how their experiences of doing exactly what we were doing at the time but with like more primitive lights to what we use these days. It's also very cold, it's a very cold cave. This is a great technique to stay warm, by using the warmth of a candle. Once you've negotiated the entrance series of the Gouffre Berger, you then pop out into this huge trunk passage. And you follow it all the way down passing some iconic locations, this one's called Lake Cadeau, named after one of the original explorers. In dry weather conditions, this lake completely disappears and you can just walk through. And then the most iconic location in the cave is this place called Hall of the Thirteen, named after the 13 French explorers. It's also home to one of the first underground camps, there are two camps in the cave, this one's the first one. And at this point, we make a telephone call basically back up to the surface to get a weather forecast. To make sure it's safe to continue down into the cave. Because after the camp, the nature of the cave changes, it becomes a lot wetter. This section's called a cascades and it's really important to rig a rope all the way through the section just in case the water levels rise. At this point we're about 3,000 feet underground now. Another location where there's an iconic landmark left behind by the French pioneers. You imagine carrying that metal pole all the way down through the entrance series, across that lake, through the cascades. Would have been very challenging in 1953. And they used it to gain access to the far wall of the cave where they could rig a ladder to avoid the waterfall below them. Nowadays, we use the ropes. Again, away from the waterfall, making it safe. And then finally, you reach the bottom of the cave. Where the water levels are really, really high and you're forced to swim through the cave passage. And it's very low. And if you haven't made that telephone call earlier to the surface to get the weather forecast, you probably wouldn't wanna go through this section. Just in case the water levels did rise and it got sealed off.

Now limestone caves, they're not the only caves out there, there are other caves as well. And I really wanted to document caves insides glaciers because they're ever-changing. And they're under threat and they're disappearing due to climate change. Now glacier caves or moulins, as they're also known, are formed when surface meltwater disappears down in a crack through the ice and winds it way all the way down through the glacier to the bottom. And they can be very dangerous things to explore during the day, when there's a lot of meltwater. Which is why we tend to explore them at night. When hopefully the cold temperatures have frozen all the water. However, this does mean setting an alarm at something like 2 a.m. in the morning and getting up out of your nice warm sleeping bag and making some kind of breakfast. I'm not sure if Gareth on the right there in the red was half asleep when I took this picture, it looks like he's eating a pan of snow, as opposed to a pan of porridge. Knowing Gareth, it probably is snow. Then we'd hike over the glacier avoiding any crevices that might be on the way. And trying to find those moulins that we had made GPS waypoints of before. When we get to the entrance of the moulin, we get out all the equipment that we're gonna use, install an ice screw into the ice. Trying to make it so that when the sun comes up in the morning, it's not in direct sunlight, so it wouldn't melt. And then rappel over the edge of the glacier downwards, trying to rig the ropes away from any gullys where the surface meltwater might come in the morning. And then once underground and into the glacier properly, most of the moulins that I've explored in the past are very much channeled into the ice like slides at a waterpark. And the surface is really hard and really slippy, and without what we call crampons, which are metal spikes on our boots, these things will be impossible to explore. And then sometimes the glacier, the moulin turns very vertical inside the glacier and you're forced to rig a rope and abseil again, rappel down. Other times, the water can carve a more horizontal route through it like a canyon. But we would still rig a rope through, just in case the floor suddenly gives way. And like in limestone caves, the team are really keen to make a survey of the moulin. And from this they can monitor the changes and melting. And then if we're lucky, we finally reach the bottom of the glacier and we hit bedrock.

And these passages can be absolutely spectacular as you're walking along on the bedrock underneath the glacier. And the water's carved this amazing sculpted surface above. Now here's an example of the speed at which these things can change. We discovered this moulin in 2012 on an expedition to the Gorner Glacier in Switzerland. And we named it the Balrog because it creaks and groaned, made these really strange noises. And I remember when we were exploring it, I would look up into the ceiling and see TV sized rocks wedged up in the ice, half out, half in. Thinking to myself, I wonder how much protection my little thin helmet is gonna offer should one of these things fall out and land on my head. Now the end of the Balrog, the moulin, it ended in this pool of water. And two of the team that we were with were cave divers. So they explore flooded sections of cave passage underwater in the UK. And they were really keen to explore underwater here. But they didn't have their diving equipment with them at the time. So we decided that we would come back the following year and dive the pool of water. Well, we came back the following year, and sadly this moulin had completely disappeared. It melted away and just completely gone. So this was basically like a one-time only opportunity to see this natural wonder. After that it always disappeared.

So after my moulin and glacier caves projects, my most recent projects, my most recent assignment earlier on this year was to explore caves in the quartzite Tepuis, the table top mountains in Venezuela. Now these plateaus are very, very isolated. And the caves are isolated further. So the team that we were with were biologists and scientists, and they were really keen to find unique forms of bacteria which could well be unique to science. So like I was saying, the main reason for the expedition was to help the clinical microbiologists who were on the team, who studied the micro, bacterial resistance into antibiotics. And I met up with this guy, Dr Francesco Sauro, who was a cave scientist and a cave explorer, an Italian cave explorer. Who won the Rolex Award, the 2014 Rolex Award for Enterprise for his work inside these Venezuelan Tepuis. And we met up in a village called Canaracuni, which is at the foot of Sarisarinama Tepui. These days I always take with me a Polaroid camera because they're a great way to build up relationships with the local villagers. And they're great gifts to give to the people, the kids love them. Just like I always carry a diary, a leather bound diary. And from this I write up the daily account of what we've done. Make sketches of things, this is a sketch of the Auyantepui with the village of Kavak, where we stayed as well. Now the surface of Sarisarinama Tepui is heavily vegetated. But on the surface there are these big holes, they're called simas. They're basically collapsed cave chambers which are now open to the surface. And it's things like this, these big holes, that attract people like Francesco.

Now getting on top of a Tepui is very difficult. Landing a helicopter is virtually impossible. So whilst the helicopter hovered for maybe a meter, two meters off the surface of the floor. We had to slowly, gently get off, slide down onto the skids without making any sudden movements, not to distract the pilot too much. And slide off onto the floor because the rotor blades are say this far away from the trees and then watch him turn around and fly off. Pretty scary. Below the trees on Sarisarinama, it's very, very thick with the vegetation. But on the other Tepui that we explored, the Auyantepui, there's hardly any vegetation, it's very different. The wildlife on top of these Tepuis is fascinating, you've got things like these fly catching carnivorous plants on the left, tree frogs, parrots flying around. This expedition was two-fold, there was the microbiological project going on as well but also second to that was a laser scanning team which had gone into the cave to make a 3D map of the cave. And I wanted to hang out with these guys 'cause they were gonna spend four consecutive days underground. We had two camps, one camp in the cave and then one camp on the surface, not that far away. And I took advantage of the fact that the surface camp was so close. So I would set my alarm a little bit earlier than these guys, get up, run out onto the surface. Because on the surface they had a cafetiere and I had a fresh coffee, and I'm a big fan of coffee, so these guys just had Nescafe, so. And then I would get back and as these guys are waking up like, "Where have you been?" "I just been outside for a coffee." But there is a serious point to this as well, I could relay messages back to the surface team and then tell them what we were doing on the day and then they could like tell us what they were gonna do. So I was like the human radio basically.

These are the laser scanning team, Tommaso on the left, Umberto in the middle, and then Ada on the right-hand side. And that right photograph is a typical scene working with the laser scanning team because each scan took about three minutes to perform and in that three minute time we had to run off and hide in order not to be scanned. Otherwise, we were gonna be fixed inside the scan as well whilst the lasers are all firing around. So we had to find these little nooks and crannies to hide from the scanner. Now it's because these caves are so remote and so rarely visited that it was important to make this accurate map of the cave. Because we might never return, who knows. And at this point in the cave, the underground world meets the surface world. You basically walk out into one of those simas, one of those skylights but from below. And it's a strange feeling when you spend so long underground in total darkness. Coming out to something like this where there's vegetation on the rocks and birds flying around above your head. Makes you realize how remote and isolated you are. It's a fascinating place. Each time I passed this part of the cave, I was drawn to the shapes and the patterns in the ceiling of the cave passage. And I was really keen to take a picture here. And finally, towards the end of the trip, Francesco and the team, they helped me make this picture. Another part of the cave that's absolutely spectacular is this part of this cave, it's called Thousand Column Gallery, for obvious reasons. And the laser scanning team spent a long time here working their way through the columns, making a really accurate map. And it gave me a great opportunity to take lots and lots of pictures. But not always with the manpower you need to take these pictures. So this is a self portrait of me running through the columns with Ada in the background. Another part of the cave that's really unusual is this part with the lake. But what's spectacular and unusual about the lake is a fact that on part of the surface, there's a skin of bacteria that's growing on the surface. And it changes by day to day where it is, it's really unusual. And from my point of view, it was unusual because it reflected light like oil does. With a really rainbow colored pattern to it. Very strange.

Now, Albert Einstein said that if you look deeper into nature, you'll understand everything better. And by looking closer at some of these caves, what exists there, I can understand what he's getting at in a way. Like on the left you've got these cool gypsum formations. And on the right-hand side, the middle photograph. That's a moth that's been eaten from the inside out by bacteria. Really, really unusual. Now just like Francesco, this guy in the blue, Hosam Zowawi his name is, from Saudi Arabia. He won the Rolex Award in 2014 for his work as a clinical microbiologist. And Francesco invited him to come along and help understand basically what's going on in the cave with the bacteria. So he's taken some samples back to his university in Queensland, in Brisbane, where he's analyzing the bacteria in the samples. Meanwhile it also gave Francesco time to take some samples again for his work that he's doing back in Italy. And then on the surface he created like this field laboratory close to one of the simas where he started doing the work. Finally, just before returning home, I was invited to take a short helicopter ride onto another Tepui and explore another cave called Cueva Fantasma. I didn't really know what we were going to and the journey through the gorge in the helicopter was absolutely fascinating. The rotor blades were ever so close to the cliffs. And in the distance I could see that the gorge ended, I didn't know where we were going, like I say, and we got closer and closer to the end. And the cliffs got closer to the rotor blades and just when I thought we were gonna like crash or something, the pilot turned right. And entered this huge cave entrance, I don't know if you guys can see the helicopter parked up on the floor there. I mean I don't know how high it is, it's absolutely ginormous. But it was really spectacular to spend some time here. Now visiting the Tepuis in Venezuela and standing on top of one was an absolute privilege. And exploring the caves and getting the opportunity to photograph them like we did was a dream come true. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about the lost world on top of the Tepuis, I wonder what he would've made of the caves. And finally, these photographs, they don't take themselves and they involve a lot of help from many, many people to bring in all the lighting equipment. And I've got a page on my website that lists all the people who's ever helped me. So, I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank all those people. And my girlfriend and I prepared this presentation for you 'cause she's a cave scientist herself as well. And also a National Geographic grantee. And I hope with the presentation that we've kind of shown you a little bit about the world underground and tried to break down some of those borders. Remember, you don't have to be an astronaut or a deep sea diver to discover something new. Thank you.

Stunning Cave Photography Illuminates an Unseen World

The first time National Geographic photographer Robbie Shone stepped foot in a cave, he was hooked. Captivated by the thrill of exploration and the stunning vistas, Shone began bringing a camera into the caves. Shone takes the stage to share his stunning cave photos and the stories of how he got them.

The National Geographic Live series brings thought-provoking presentations by today’s leading explorers, scientists, photographers, and performing artists right to you. Each presentation is filmed in front of a live audience at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C.